Month: November 2011

Well, at least that’s what Wilfred Brimley and the guy who yells at fat people on NBC tell me. But just like wholesome Amish kids during rumspringa, oatmeal can get wild, crazy, and do unhealthy things as well.

For example, instead of using skim milk or water to make my oatmeal, I use melted ice cream and then top that with crushed Heath candy bar pieces, Hershey chocolate syrup. a small bag of M&M’s, and half a container of Cool Whip.

That sounds totally diabeteeriffic!

I can corrupt oatmeal to the point where you would have to start calling it ho-meal. But it appears Quaker has done the corrupting for me with their new chocolate chip instant oatmeal.

Okay, they haven’t really done any corrupting because there aren’t many semisweet chocolate chips in each instant oatmeal packet.

If you’d like to teach your child how to count using the chocolate chips in each packet, you’re going to have to open a number of packets to equal the level of learning your child will get from watching an episode of Sesame Street, because each one contains four or five chocolate chips. And they’re not big chocolate chips. They make the oats in each packet look bigger than they really are.

I made a bowl of Quaker Chocolate Chip Instant Oatmeal using vanilla soy milk and another using filtered water. Using filtered water is healthier, but using vanilla soy milk makes it taste better. But if you read on, that’s not saying much.

The chocolate chips take awhile to melt, and after they do, the oatmeal looks chocolatey. As you can see above, the liquid looks like the milk at the bottom of the bowl after eating Cocoa Puffs, but that liquid is a liar.

A dirty stinkin’ liar!

The chocolate flavor is almost non-existent. It has less flavor than the other Quaker flavored instant oatmeal varieties I’ve had. I wish Quaker had put a little hot cocoa powder in their Chocolate Chip Instant Oatmeal to make things tolerable. So it looks like, in order to get through the rest of the box, I’m going to have to make this oatmeal tolerable on my own with some cocoa power, semisweet chocolate chips, M&M’s, crushed Oreo cookies, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, chocolate sprinkles, crushed Butterfinger candy pieces, Hershey’s Kisses, and melted HÃ¤agen-Dazs chocolate ice cream.

Item: Quaker Chocolate Chip Instant Oatmeal Price: $3.29Size: 10 packets/1.23 ounces eachPurchased at: TargetRating: 4 out of 10Pros: Quick to make. Good source of whole grains. Rumspringa. Sesame Street. Decent source of fiber. Low in fat.Cons: Really faint chocolate flavor. Really small chocolate chips. Not many chocolate chips in each packet. The liquid in the oatmeal is a liar, a dirty stinkin’ liar! Using the chocolate chips to teach your child to count won’t get him or her very far unless you open several packets.

The element of surprise can be a valuable tool. As the Japanese poet BashÅ famously observed, “When you surprise your enemy, you fuck his shit up.” [Translated] That’s true both on the battlefield and in the kitchen. I’ve eaten and reviewed plenty of foods that have surprised me, some pleasantly, some less so. One of the draws of foreign food, as related to me by people who try it, is the chance to encounter new tastes you’ve never experienced before and weren’t expecting.

But as God is my witness, Pop-Tarts are not such a food. No one buys Pop-Tarts for the mystery factor. You purchase them because you know exactly what you’re getting: a flaky pastry, probably frosting on top, and filled with whatever flavor you selected, be it S’Mores or Raspberry Milkshake or Soylent Green. If I got a Pop-Tart that didn’t taste like what it was named, I would only eat the entire box in three days under extreme protest, I promise you that. So when I learned Kellogg’s was releasing another limited edition holiday variety of Pop-Tarts, this one flavored like sugar cookies, my only thought was: they’d damn well better taste like sugar cookies. Well, as it turns out:

…..yeah, basically they taste like sugar cookies. Phew.

While no living human has eaten as many Pop-Tarts varieties as The Impulsive Buy’s editor-in-chief, I have been around the block a few times myself, and these are among the better-tasting Pop-Tarts I’ve tried. They don’t taste exactly like real sugar cookies, which obviously don’t have vaguely marshmallow-y filling inside them like these do, and the texture is a bit different from crumbly sugar cookies. You wouldn’t mistake them for cookies in a blind taste test is what I’m saying, but you’d still probably ask for another bite. The sweetness lingers in your mouth afterward and might be too much for those without a sweet tooth, though I doubt the sugar-averse are picking up a package of these anyway. And as simple as sugar cookies are, I’m glad Kellogg’s didn’t try making them Sugar Cookie Ice Cream Cone (With Rainbow Sprinkles and Hot Fudge) Pop-Tarts, which would’ve ruined it. For once they wisely showed some restraint.

Not a lot, mind you. I’m guessing someone’s train of thought was that if the pastry itself was going to be straightforward, they’d better jazz it up in other respects. Said jazzing occurs two ways, the first of which is the wrappers. As you probably know, they come in packs of two inside shiny foil wrappers.

What I’ve never seen before is little word balloons with slogans extolling the virtues of the product contained therein, and yet there they were. I’m guessing they’re randomly generated, since one of my wrappers sported the phrase “We look good in silver,” and immediately below it, “Silver is your color.” Some are almost slightly funny, most just annoying. I kept looking for one promising good things were right around the corner, but no dice.

But trite-ass slogans don’t sell Pop-Tarts, as my grandmother used to say — the main draw, other than the taste, is the “printed fun” promised in the name. See, each pastry hosts a scene of a smiling creature frolicking in winter, be it kittens skiing or a penguin flipping you the bird (I assume… it’s hard to tell without fingers), or most bizarrely, a snowman bobsled team sporting two of Jamaica’s three national colors, suggesting someone at Kellogg’s has a sly sense of humor and a fondness for Cool Runnings.

The polar bear is skating rather than enjoying a cool, refreshing Coca-Cola, missing out on a golden opportunity for cross-promotion if you ask me, but then food blogging’s gain was the marketing world’s loss, obviously. Anyway, they’re… well, they’re cute. It’s not like kids needed an extra incentive to eat warm rectangles of sugar and fat, but they fit the holiday theme and allow you the chance to bite a seal’s head off without going to jail, so there’s that.

I unapologetically kind of dig these. I should probably be annoyed by the excessive cuteness of the printed images, far more saccharine than anything contained within the pastry itself. But… well, it’s the holiday season. If there’s ever a time to refrain from mocking overly sentimental things, minus the last five paragraphs, this is probably it. They taste good and pretty similar to actual sugar cookies, the printed images will appeal to their intended audience of children and me, and they can be used as a last-minute gift in a pinch, if it turns out your girlfriend doesn€™t find the “Dick in a Box” skit as hilarious as you do. Overall, as shameless holiday tie-ins go, they’re definitely among the better ones.

Ever since reading that review, I’ve been kraving Krave because I love a cereal that borders on the line of cereal and candy. Thankfully, I soon won’t be kraving Krave, instead I’ll be kramming Krave down my oral kavity because Krave is koming to Amerika.

The US version of Krave cereal will come in two varieties: Chocolate and Double Chocolate. The chocolate version consists of a crispy multi-grain cereal outside with a smooth chocolate inside, while the double chocolate version will have a chocolate flavored cereal on the outside with a smooth chocolate inside.

Ben & Jerry’s Banana Cream Pie ice cream is made up of banana ice cream with pastry cream swirls, marshmallow swirls, and pie crust pieces. In order to get some, you’ll have to walk through a Walmart, since it’s an exclusive flavor. Thankfully, walking through a Walmart is much safer now that there aren’t people getting pushed around and trampled for $2 waffle makers. Or $1.28 towels. Or cheap Blu-Ray players.

You know how you’re not supposed to play with food? Well, how the hell can I contain myself from playing with the Taco Bell Triple Steak Stack? Its flatness makes me want to bust out my die-cast toy planes and turn it into an aircraft carrier called the USS TSS (Triple Steak Stack). Also, because it’s flat and has a light exterior, I want to pretend its Barbie’s waif Russian supermodel friend, Katherina, who likes to go shopping with Barbie during the day, but is a secret KGB spy at night.

The list of ingredients for Taco Bell Triple Steak Stack isn’t very long, although, because I feel sorry for its lack of ingredients, I’m going to try to make it look longer than it really is by using the power of unnecessary words. The Triple Steak Stack contains a triple serving of marinated steak and a triple cheese blend of low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese, pasteurized process Monterey Jack cheese, and American cheese in between a nine-inch bolillo flatbread.

With a limited number of ingredients, I expected Taco Bell’s newest addition to be bland, and it turns out I was correct. Taco Bell’s “improved” steak may be an upgrade over what they used to serve, but it still tastes like cheap meat. How cheap? It tastes like the roast beef and gravy from a 99 cent frozen meal. However, that cheap meat was tender and the triple serving of steak was enough to nicely fill the nine-inch flatbread.

The cheese just lies there like its Jabba the Hut after being choked by Princess Leia and it adds almost nothing to the Triple Steak Stack’s flavor. Speaking of things that don’t have much flavor, the bolillo flatbread was not only quite bland, it was also not sturdy enough to handle the amount of steak in it. The soft, but thick flatbread easily felt apart while I ate it.

If you’re going to eat the Taco Bell Triple Steak Stack, might I suggest asking for extra Taco Bell sauce packets on top of the handful they already give you, because you’re going to need a lot of sauce to cover the taste of the cheap meat and to spread across the nine-inch flatbread. I’d also suggest taking more money than you usually do when visiting Taco Bell. Five bucks will usually get you a full Taco Bell meal, but that same five dollars will get you only one Taco Bell Triple Steak Stack.